A Leader in Every Sense
Gibson Dunn is a full-service global law firm advising on some of today’s most complex and significant matters. We are known for excellence in the practice of law and are committed to providing the very highest level of legal services. We offer unparalleled, innovative thinking for clients with the most challenging needs and aspire to handle all matters as partners with, and not merely as service providers to, our clients.
Gibson Dunn has ten offices in the United States and ten international offices. Despite that geographic spread, we operate as a single, unified law firm. Our attorneys work together in seamless teamwork across borders, jurisdictions and legal disciplines, finding the right combination of talent and resources for each unique matter entrusted to us by our diverse, multinational client base.
A Disputes Resolution Powerhouse
We are world-renowned for our litigation, international arbitration and appellate practices. Our global practice also includes the complete range of regulatory matters and internal investigations, along with related court proceedings. The American Lawyer named Gibson Dunn its 2020 Litigation Department of the Year, the firm’s fourth win in the last six of the publication’s biennial “Litigation Department of the Year” competitions, and the sixth time in a row the firm has been a finalist. In addition, Benchmark Litigation US 2020 awarded its highest recommendations for the firm’s litigation practices in California, New York, Texas and Washington, D.C. and recognized Gibson Dunn in eight U.S. litigation practice areas. The publication also named Gibson Dunn as 2020 Appellate Firm of the Year.
On the trial court front, we handle the most complex matters tried in both state and federal courts, including recently representing Deutsche Telekom (DT) when the Southern District of New York held, in a landmark antitrust ruling following a two-week trial, that a DT entity’s $26.5 billion acquisition of Sprint Corporation did not violate Clayton Act §7, clearing the way for the transaction to proceed. We also won a unanimous defense jury verdict for Ottogi Corporation, Ltd. and Ottogi America, Inc. after a groundbreaking ramen noodle-related antitrust price-fixing trial, defeating class claims for more than $415 million.
We handle many different kinds of matters in the international arbitration arena with arbitration specialists in London, Dubai, New York, Los Angeles, and many other offices. This work includes our representation of Canadian gold miner Crystallex International Corp. in connection with the enforcement of its $1.4 billion arbitration award against the Republic of Venezuela. In a high-profile battle between Crystallex and Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA, Gibson Dunn secured a first-of-its-kind Third Circuit decision allowing Crystallex to attach shares of the parent company of CITGO Petroleum to aid in enforcing the award.
The preeminence of our appellate practice is underscored by Gibson Dunn being named to The National Law Journal’s 2019 Appellate Hot List, recognizing 25 firms that “won key matters before the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeal.” Landmark cases have included securing the historic 2013 U.S. Supreme Court Hollingsworth v. Perry marriage equality decision, the 2014 patent win Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l for CLS Bank, and the recent 2020 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court invalidating the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program (DHS v. Regents).
Among other matters, Gibson Dunn also leveraged this appellate expertise for Facebook, Inc., successfully taking over an Internet privacy matter from another firm and securing from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals a ruling that the Stored Communications Act prohibits criminal defendants from subpoenaing service providers for a prosecution witness’s social media records.
Comprehensive Transactional Excellence
Gibson Dunn is also a powerhouse in the transactional field and plays a major role in a wide variety of U.S. and global matters. Recognitions include rankings among The Elite for Corporate/M&A nationwide and in New York by Chambers USA 2020. Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business 2020 recognized Gibson Dunn and its lawyers globally and in the Asia, Europe, Latin America and Middle East regions. Gibson Dunn perennially handles high-dollar transactions for household names, including Amazon.com, Inc. ($10 billion notes offering) and Marriott International, Inc. ($1.6 billion notes offering).
Showcasing the firm’s seamless global practice, Gibson Dunn lawyers across seven offices – Hong Kong, Beijing, Houston, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Century City and London – represented NetEase, Inc., one of China's leading Internet and online game services providers, in four separate projects: its $2.7 billion global offering of shares and related SEC filings; the $2 billion sale of its cross-border e-commerce platform, Kaola, to Alibaba; a multi-pronged joint collaboration with Marvel Entertainment to create new original entertainment based on Marvel’s superhero characters; and a joint venture with Mattel, Inc. to form a publishing and development game studio, Mattel163, leveraging Mattel’s global brands.
Sports-related transactions include advising the Klutch Sports Group, LLC, agency for high-profile sports figures including NBA star LeBron James, in connection with a significant investment by, and partnership with, United Talent Agency, a leading talent and entertainment company.
In the energy space we are advising Berkshire Hathaway Energy on its acquisition of Dominion Energy's natural gas transmission and storage business in a transaction with an enterprise value of approximately $9.7 billion.
A Vibrant Real Estate Practice
Gibson Dunn’s real estate lawyers handle some of the most sophisticated matters worldwide. The breadth of work covered for a wide array of clients includes acquisitions and sales, joint ventures, financing, land use and development, and construction. Gibson Dunn also has one of the leading hotel and hospitality practices globally.
Chambers USA 2020 ranked Gibson Dunn in Tier 1 nationwide for real estate, and The US Legal 500 2020 awarded the firm first-tier rankings in the Real Estate and Land Use/Zoning categories. Law360 named Gibson Dunn a 2019 Real Estate Practice Group of the Year, and The Real Deal ranked Gibson Dunn No. 2 on its 2019 lists of law firms that handled the highest dollar volume of New York real estate transactions on both the buyers’ and lenders’ sides.
Examples of recent work include serving as counsel to The Related Companies in the $2.2 billion purchase/leaseback of the global 26-floor headquarters of AT&T’s WarnerMedia at 30 Hudson Yards, New York, a space of about 1.5 million square feet in an office tower that has the highest observation deck in the Western Hemisphere. We are also advising with respect to the development of multiple sports and entertainment venues. These include (the New York Islanders’ new arena in Belmont, New York, and the multibillion-dollar SoFi stadium sports and entertainment complex, Steve Ballmer’s recent acquisition of the Forum, and development of a new arena for the NBA’s L.A. Clippers, all in Inglewood, California.
A Truly Full-Service Firm
In line with our “one firm” philosophy, Gibson Dunn provides unparalleled interdisciplinary teamwork on cutting-edge and news-making matters. We serve as lead counsel to NBA’s Golden State Warriors in connection with the development of a mixed-use office, arena and entertainment complex in San Francisco. After our land use team first entitled the complex and sensitive project, our litigators successfully defended the entitlements and approvals at the trial and appellate levels.
In another example, we are acting as national litigation, regulatory and coordinating counsel for Expedia, Inc. and its subsidiary HomeAway with respect to various jurisdictions’ laws seeking to regulate short-term rental websites, and in challenging forced disclosure regulations. Tackling issues as varied as consumer privacy and Fourth Amendment protections, our litigation, appellate, regulatory, and land use practices address new legislative and regulatory proposals as they arise, bringing or defending against court actions as necessary.
An Evolving Approach to Law
Our lawyers’ work keeps pace with evolving legal, business and technological arenas – and our clients’ needs in them. For example, we have formed an Artificial Intelligence and Automated Systems practice and recently launched the Judgment and Arbitral Award Enforcement practice.
Our new global Betting and Gaming Practice Group represents some of the most prestigious and influential clients in the gaming industry across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Advocating for the State of New Jersey, Gibson Dunn argued successfully in the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the federal law barring states from authorizing or licensing sports gambling. Law360 named Gibson Dunn a 2019 Sports & Betting Practice Group of the Year, and Gambling Compliance named the firm “Best Regulatory Lawyer or Law Firm of the Year (North America)” at its 2019 Gambling Compliance Global Regulatory Awards, recognizing “exceptional legal service and guidance to clients within the sector.”